Sector employment macro thread

BLS payroll employment indicators for manufacturing, construction, retail trade, financial activities, and government.

As of: 2026-05-01. Related topic page: /skills/sector-employment.html.

This page is a data-driven assembly of existing grepcent indicators, SIC crosswalks, SEC company financials, and sanitized SEC MD&A text. The mapped sectors are grepcent descriptive editorial mappings, not forecasts, recommendations, or investment advice. Company inclusion is mechanical - largest by revenue in the mapped SIC sectors - and is not a recommendation, endorsement, or an assessment of any company's exposure to this theme.

Sector mapping is coarse (SIC level) and does not imply a company's business is driven by this theme; keyword matches are literal and may be incidental - read the linked filing for context.

Macro Side

Indicator	Latest Reading	Units	As Of	Source
MANEMP - All Employees, Manufacturing	12605	Thousands of Persons	2026-05-01	FRED source
USCONS - All Employees, Construction	8337	Thousands of Persons	2026-05-01	FRED source
USTRADE - All Employees, Retail Trade	15457.9	Thousands of Persons	2026-05-01	FRED source
USFIRE - All Employees, Financial Activities	9104	Thousands of Persons	2026-05-01	FRED source
USGOVT - All Employees, Government	23387	Thousands of Persons	2026-05-01	FRED source

Mapped SIC Sectors

Mapped from the existing topic crosswalk, refined where needed to SIC major-group scope for company selection.

Construction SIC division C
Manufacturing SIC division D
Retail Trade SIC division G
Finance, Insurance, And Real Estate SIC division H
Services SIC division I

Largest Companies in Mapped Sectors (by revenue)

Companies are selected from the mapped SIC sectors and sorted by latest reported annual revenue (from SEC companyfacts). Missing metrics are left blank. MD&A signals are keyword matches against the sanitized latest 10-K MD&A text. Keywords scanned: employment levels, workforce reductions, headcount reductions, labor costs, staffing shortages.

Company	Revenue	FY	Net Margin	Operating Margin	Revenue Growth	MD&A Mentions	Verbatim MD&A Excerpt
AMZN - AMAZON COM INC	716,924,000,000	2025	10.83%	11.16%	12.38%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.
WMT - Walmart Inc.	713,163,000,000	2026	3.07%	4.18%	4.73%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.
UNH - UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INC	447,567,000,000	2025	2.69%	4.24%	11.81%	workforce reductions	No short unambiguous sentence excerpt emitted; see full company MD&A.
AAPL - Apple Inc.	416,161,000,000	2025	26.92%	31.97%	6.43%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.
GOOGL - Alphabet Inc.	402,836,000,000	2025	32.81%	32.03%	15.09%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.
CVS - CVS HEALTH Corp	402,067,000,000	2025	0.44%	1.16%	7.85%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.
BRK-B - BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC	371,444,000,000	2025	18.03%		0.00%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.
XOM - EXXON MOBIL CORP	332,238,000,000	2025	8.68%		-4.96%	workforce reductions	Strategic changes implemented over the past several years enabled the Corporation to capture $15.1 billion of structural cost savings(1) versus 2019, including $3 billion of savings during 2025, through increased operational efficiencies, workforce reductions, divestment-related reductions, and other cost-saving measures. Verbatim sentence from XOM latest 10-K MD&A, filed 2026-02-18; 0000034088-26-000045.
MSFT - MICROSOFT CORP	281,724,000,000	2025	36.15%	45.62%	14.93%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.
COST - COSTCO WHOLESALE CORP /NEW	275,235,000,000	2025	2.94%	3.77%	8.17%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.
CI - Cigna Group	274,900,000,000	2025	2.17%	3.35%	11.24%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.
NVDA - NVIDIA CORP	215,938,000,000	2026	55.60%	60.38%	65.47%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.
META - Meta Platforms, Inc.	200,966,000,000	2025	30.08%	41.44%	22.17%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.
ELV - Elevance Health, Inc.	199,125,000,000	2025	2.84%	3.62%	12.49%	labor costs	There are many drivers of medical cost trends that can cause variance from our estimates, such as changes in the level and mix of services utilized, regulatory changes, aging of the population, health status and other demographic characteristics of our members, epidemics, pandemics, advances in medical technology, new high-cost prescription drugs, new indications of existing prescription drugs, provider contracting inflation, labor costs and healthcare fraud, waste and abuse. Verbatim sentence from ELV latest 10-K MD&A, filed 2026-02-06; 0001156039-26-000013.
CNC - CENTENE CORP	194,777,000,000	2025	-3.43%	-3.91%	19.44%		No keyword match found in emitted latest 10-K MD&A.

Informational only - not investment advice.